pool turned green this past week while frozen over

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C

camueller

0
May 11, 2016
491
Troy IL
Hi all. I was surprised to notice my pool looked green through the ice earlier this week. It has warmed up a bit now, and the ice has mostly melted and I can see that sure enough, it is light green and there appears to be a layer of algae on the floor and walls. I'm surprised to see this as I thought with the water cold it wouldn't happen. The only thing I can think is that I left a water hose attached to a submersible pump hanging into the water over the edge of the pool for a week or more. Several days ago it rained a bunch and I was trying to get water out without turning up my main pump. Then it froze with the sumbersible in the water, and I just left it. Now I'm thinking that was a pathway for algae.

Anyway, any ideas what caused it? And what should I do now? I might be able to get away with turning my pump back on and start a SLAM. I doubt we'll be down to 0 again this year. But I'm still shocked that this happened when air temps are still well below 50 pretty solidly.
 
When did you close your pool for winter? Was the water temperature well below 60F? Did you have the pool covered?
 
I "closed" it when the water was in the 50's and about 2 months after all my neighbors did. I actually had to hurry up and do it because we were getting a hard freeze by the time I winterized my pool. But I put closed in quotes because I don't cover my pool. I just drain the pump and filter and blow the plumbing clear of water so they don't freeze and bust.

But the pool has been perfectly clear since December. No problems other than dirt from rain and snow as we've gone from highs in the teens to highs in the 40's and back and forth for a couple of months. Just odd that all of a sudden if started to get green. And I didn't think algae could grow in such cold water.

I guess though I'll just fire the pump back up and start throwing chlorine in for a SLAM. I dislike looking at it when it's green, and I don't want it to get any worse.
 
If you go that route I would run the ammonia protocol first.
To check and defeat ammonia, if necessary, is to raise your FC in the water using enough liquid chlorine to get to 10 ppm using PoolMath. Circulate the pool for 15 minutes. Test FC. If at 5 or below, add LC to get to 10 using LC, circulate for 15 minutes, repeat until your FC is above 5 ppm after the 15 minute circulation is above 5 ppm.

Once you see that FC is holding, check your CYA and be sure it is at 30 ppm or higher.
 
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